State Mountain Bike Race and My Frist 5K

Here we are at the state mountain bike championship in Cedar City. Jack gets to race because he's a senior. He has a great attitude about racing but doesn't push crazy hard.

Despite Juliet's crash earlier in the season, she worked her way back up and qualified for state!

She didn't want to win state, just qualify and compete.

While in Cedar, I realized my cousin Brooke was here with her daughter. We had a chance to catch up for a few minutes between races.

Jack with the senior boys. Collin Phipps won! Jack got a flat and rode the last mile on a flat tire instead of fixing it. 

Then we came home and I'd signed up for a glow in the dark 5K. Jack and Juliet were out but Merril, Mark, and Mikayla ran with me.

Swag includes all these cheap lighted glasses and rings. Lots of glow sticks too.

Mikayla did the fun run and won a stainless water bottle.

Valley of Fire=WOW

The Valley of Fire is a Nevada state park by Overton. I've heard about it and wanted to hike there for a while. You can't hike between May and September because it's so hot. We picked a perfect day during Fall Break to hit it. Such a pretty little state park. How have I never been here before?

It's mainly sandstone and petroglyphs. 

A few small arches thrown in too!

And BIGHORN SHEEP! I've only seen them twice in my whole life! There were quite a few to gawk at!

My cutie peeps! I'm thankful they came. Jack had a ton to do at the house but Mark wouldn't come without him. I'm glad he came because then Mark came too. 

 

Merril at Rampage 2023

Merril is trying to do rampage and radios for vacation races and he's been so busy!  

This was part of our Come, Follow Me lesson. Mikayla is putting on the whole armor of God. ???

I was able to go up and visit Merril at Rampage. He's been working so hard that I barely see him.

I went for a hike the other day and these purple flowers kept popping up! So pretty! I kept taking pictures.

 

Fall Colors!

After the morning session of conference, we met up with Jared's family and went up American Fork canyon to see the fall colors. 

We split up with Jared and Maxine and she hitched a ride back to her car in Lehi and we continued down Provo canyon because I wanted to see the Provo City Center Temple. It was lovely but so busy. Everyone else decided to drive up the canyon too. That road is too narrow and what should've taken an hour took like 3. 

Oh well. Still a nice day.

Eagle Mountain Mountain Bike Race

Eagle Mountain was a great race but it was WINDY! Maxine drove down from Logan to hang with us. I gave her bad directions and she got to the race venue on this bad dirt road. She ended up driving through the race finish. Oh man. The worst. But after we got over that, we had a fun time.

Maxine making the magic happen with her artwork.

Trying to get everyone's bike to the venue is sometimes a bit of a trick.

Juliet loves this shot. I'm not quite sure if it's from this race but I'm going to leave it here.

I think Merril was a sweep at this race but who knows. Sometimes pictures get all jumbled up.

The kids raced well but like I said, it was windy and dusty!

We had dust everywhere when we were done.

At the end of the day, Merril and I were helping at the finish and it was bad.

We had to resort to creative ways to keep the dust out of our eyes.

Good times but I really wanted a shower after that.

Sister Wengler

It's surprising how many of Maxine's missionary companions are around Provo, UT. Maxine found Sister Wengler, I mean Emma, and they spent a weekend together! Yay! Maxine loves her!

 

Merril And The Girls At Lake Powell

Lake Powell time with Shawn and all his toys!

This year, Merril was able to take the girls.

Juliet tried her hand at wake surfing and Merril took some cool video. She said it was cold. Fair. It's the end of the season and it was night.

Awesome memories were made.

Maxine's making memories up at USU. It was a white out game.

I went on a nice evening hike up behind our house. Perfect weather.

Perfect Fall

Juliet had mountain bike practice up at wire mesa. It was lovely weather and she needed to do homework so I drove and then did a little hike. The last time I went to wire mesa, a girl crashed and I walked for 1 minute and then helped to pick cactus spines out of her. 

My girls and I also went to the St George temple open house. I keep going any chance I can get. I can't wait for that Temple to open.

 And here's Mark doing awesome Mark things. Jack was taking the pictures but it's hard to take a picture of yourself when you're doing a jump so I don't have any of him. 

 

Lovesac Party!

Shawn invited a few of us to a LoveSac party in Salt Lake. It was for employees but it's fun to have some friends there too. I was the only wife who was able to go. It was 90s themed. 

Merril wasn't feeling very well. He found a lovesac and a cover and spent a large part of the night in the hallway. Poor guy. Then we drove back home.

I Want that Skeleton

We had a fire in the back yard. It's not that interesting except Juliet and I had just washed our hair and didn't want it to smell like smoke. We tied garbage bags on our heads. 

She wasn't thrilled about having her picture taken.

You see these $30 skeletons? I thought that was a brilliant price and I wanted one. Bad. I want it for Halloween, even though Halloween is still mega far away.

I totally bought it! I predict they will sell out quickly. They are about the size of Mikayla. 5 feet.